


Survivor

by spockina



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Deaths, Gen, M/M, Other, but probs not really, deaths everywhere, idek, kind of sad, still isn't sad tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 05:05:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3162311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockina/pseuds/spockina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk is a survivor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survivor

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! Been a while since I last posted but a girl gotta do what a girl gotta do, right? Yes. This is Star Trek fanfiction! Yay. It's probably not very happy but it also isn't angsty or even sad, but I'll let you be the judge of that. I'm always slightly unsettled when I find quotes without sources, so if you know the source, let me know. Anyways, I hope you like it!
> 
> Love,
> 
> Spockina.

_“Everyone leaves, learn how to survive alone.”_

_– Unknown._

**∴**

The first person to leave was his father. George didn’t even live enough to hear Jim cry, and to hear his pleas for George to come back, to stay. But George died because of Jim, so it didn’t matter. George left, and it was Jim’s fault.

Life certainly wasn’t easy, but hey! He was the son of a hero. What else could he ask for? The Federation granted Jim just about every privilege he could think of. Life was nice, with all things considered.

The second person to leave was his brother. Sam just didn’t fucking care. He heard Jim crying, and he heard Jim begging him not to go, and it didn’t matter. “You’re killing me, Jim,” he said. He walked out the door, then, and he didn’t care any more than George did. It was Jim’s fault.

Life was hard, then. Sam was the only person who ever saw Jim and now what was he going to do? Jim wasn’t sure, but he knew he was going to make it. He had before, and he could now, too. He rebelled more often than not, but he needed to be noticed. He needed to be _seen_.

Then, Frank left. “He’s killing me, and you, and everything he touches, Winona, the same way he killed his dad. I can’t do this,” his stepfather said, bags already out of the house. Jim didn’t care. He didn’t ask Frank to stay, didn’t even say goodbye. But it was his fault anyway.

He couldn’t begin to explain things if he wanted to. Not that he did – he didn’t – but he simply didn’t understand. Things were unbearable. Winona was stretched thin (and _she_ was thin, too, all bones and no meat underneath), and so very tired, Jim could see it in her eyes, and in the way she only ever spoke to Jim if it was strictly necessary. Jim stopped rebelling. He didn’t want Winona to see him as much as he didn’t want to see her that way. He stopped doing all things altogether and tried to be as quiet as he could. It didn’t last long, though, because quiet wasn’t in his nature. He was born out of an explosion, for God’s sake.

One day, Winona left. “ _You_ are killing me, Jimmy.” That was all she said, so sad it broke Jim’s heart, one lonely bag over one shoulder, and then she walked out. Away. Out and away from the farm in Iowa, and also from Jim’s life. Jim didn’t argue. He didn’t even say a single word. Because Jim loved Winona so, so much, he watched as she left, standing alone in the middle of the living room, and he knew it was his fault. He didn’t blame Winona. He was the one to blame. She was doing what she had to in order to survive; Jim was going to do the same. They were both survivors.

Jim was a survivor, now. He did his very best not to get attached to anything or anyone, because that’s how things ended up leaving, in the first place.

He learned, through some unofficial channels, that Winona was now Chief Engineer in the _USS Explorer_ , in a ten-year trip around space. She was alright. That was the last time Jim ever searched about her.

Jim was a survivor, now. Survive is what he had to do.

When he met Pike again, many years after the last time the man had come around the farm when he was a kid, he wasn’t sure what everything meant, but he lived for challenges. What the man was presenting him was the challenge of a fucking lifetime, if Jim had ever seen one, so he accepted it.

The Academy was the best time of his life, but God forbid anyone ever hears the words coming out of his mouth. He didn’t get attached, except, perhaps, when he did. Gaila and Bones were his family (even if Gaila was a different kind of family… Oh, well), and nothing would change it.

Then, Gaila left. She didn’t have the time to hear Jim’s pleas for her to stay, either, because Jim didn’t have the time to say them. He only learned of her death much later, and then his tears were lost in the sea of tears that everything became. It didn’t matter how many times Bones repeated he wasn’t to blame. It changed nothing. Gaila left, and it was his fault.

Jim was lost in a sea of confusion, and the only thing that kept him going was sheer power of will. Winona was a survivor, and Jim was one, too, because she taught him how to be one even when, in fact, she didn’t.

Nero took everything in his wake but, in return, gave Jim a starship. Not that Jim would ever _say_ it, but he knew the only reason he was given the Enterprise was the mass destruction Nero caused. Jim didn’t want to think that but maybe, just maybe, his life was only good the way it was because Nero had come around. He felt dirty and disgusting, but it’s not like you can control your thoughts. He went on.

Life was beautiful, truly beautiful, and prettier than when he was in the Academy with Bones and Gaila. Jim didn’t know it could look this good, but it did, and Jim was happy. For the first time in his life, Jim was happy.

He lost people, too. He lost people who weren’t his friends, but they were his family, and he lost them. He accepted it was just his job, accepted that it was life’s course; people lived and people died.

Jim was comfortable. He thought he had lost everyone, already, everyone who had, somehow, found a breach in Jim’s wall and installed themselves in his being, and he needn’t worry about people leaving anymore, but he was wrong. There were more people there, and he didn’t want to acknowledge them because, if he did, they would _go_.

Then, Bones left him. Jim wasn’t ready for that. Jim wasn’t ready for a pain so great it was physical. He begged, and cried, and there wasn’t another doctor like Bones, who could bring people back from the _dead_ , and that’s why Bones died. Because there was no one else like him. Jim knew it wasn’t his fault, couldn’t possibly be; they were old and retired and living next door to each other and being over all happy. It wasn’t Jim’s fault, and he accepted that. He hugged Joanna tight, and if she looked so much like his old father/brother/best friend that it hurt Jim, that was something he had to deal with.

“Ashayam,” Spock said one day, years later, grave and serious and Vulcan to the last digit, “I need to confess you something.”

Jim looked over suspiciously. He knew something was wrong with his mind, and Spock just wouldn’t _help_. “Yes?” He said, voice as neutral as he could, locking the door in his mind and Spock very visibly, very humanly winced at being left out. Jim didn’t want to care. Spock was keeping something from him.

“I confess I do not know how to do this.” He said and, for the first time, Jim realized he was _broken_. He opened the door in a hurry, rushing to Spock’s side.

“What is it? Talk to me, please.”

“I am… ill. I am sorry, my t’hy’la.” He took a deep, human, unnecessary breath. “I am going to die.”

Jim wasn’t ready.

“No. Sorry, not, you’re not. You can’t. You’re a _Vulcan_. You don’t get to die before I do, Spock. No. I have nothing left. You don’t get to die. No, no.”

Spock sat down. “I am a hybrid, Jim, not a Vulcan – at least, not biologically.”

They sat together, and Spock told Jim everything, and guided Jim through his mind, where Jim found it. Found a rock in Spock’s mind that couldn’t be moved, couldn’t even be _touched_ , and it was as though it didn’t exist, but it was _there_ and they went to New Vulcan, and back, and everywhere, and there was no answer. Nothing. Jim wasn’t ready. He was never ready.

One day, it happened. They were quiet, cuddling (yes) on their huge couch, and when Spock simply said “t’hy’la”, and Jim knew.

“I love you, Jim. Be happy, t’hy’la.” And then, there was pain. Pain so great that Jim thought, for just a second, he was going to die, too, and everything would be alright. He didn’t.

He did what he had to do. People came, and said their goodbyes, and then went away. Some offered Jim help, and some simply said they were sorry. Jim didn’t care. Nothing mattered.

He stayed, and Spock left. Spock left and Jim was so lonely. So, so lonely. He sequestered himself. Left his job at Starfleet HQ, left their house in San Francisco and left everything behind, comms and all sort of communication behind. Moved to a small place they had bought all that long ago, and that was their hiding spot. No one would ever find him.

Three days later, the improbable happened: in the house’s new computer terminal, he received a message.

_Everyone leaves, Jimmy. That’s what people do. Learn how to survive alone, and go on._

_W. Kirk._

**Author's Note:**

> All comments are very much appreciated! Thank you for reading!


End file.
